The name is absent

Flexibility and security: an asymmetrical relationship?

Finally, from an academic point of view, critical approaches to the flexicurity paradigm often go
hand-in-hand with a criticism of the ambiguities of the European Employment Strategy and low ap-
proval rates of the European Commission’s policies in general. Hyman, for example, points out that
the EU discussion of labour market challenges pushes under the carpet a number of crucial issues
and fundamental dilemmas, in order to reach a common agreement based on the lower common
denominator. He fears that the European social model is under increased pressure by what he calls
the “Wal-Mart model” (an exemplar of ruthless high-scale employer) that identifies flexibility with
disposable labour, elastic hours and open-ended tasks, rather than choice, status and discretion, which
are his vision of flexibility- a synthesis of work and life, fostering the diversity of social productiv-
ity and enabling individuals to pursue a flexible life time distribution of their contribution to society
(Hyman, 2003). A more moderate critical approach stresses the fact that the flexicurity agenda is not
applicable in countries with a residual, sub-protective social welfare system and an adversarial indus-
trial relations context with a long tradition of mutual social mistrust.

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